Coming Home

Heading home soon. In the airport in Paris. Really can't believe it.

Final posts will have to wait until later when I have a keyboard again because the one I've been using with my iPad spontaneously decided to stop working, and poking one letter at a time is really annoying and time consuming. But I'll give a quick summary of the last week.

Decided not to write about Interlaken. It is a great little town but I was only there one night because it was in between seasons- too cold and wet for outdoor adventure sports and too warm for winter sports. The hostel I stayed at is one of the best and well-known hostels in the area, with the ability to sleep at least one or two hundred people. When I was there, I was one of six. Even got excited to do a bit of hiking before I left, but sure enough it was raining cats and dogs that day.

Slightly defeated, I kept my hopes up as I went to meet up with friends Brittany, Annah, and Susannah, whom I had met in Antwerp. They had kept in touch with me via facebook since our last time together, and when they asked if I wanted to go skiing with them in Bad Gastein, Austria, i jumped on the chance. The following morning we all woke up early to catch the 7 am train into the next town over, and then took a taxi up to the top of the mountain, excited to rent some equipment and hit the slopes. We thought it was kind of strange that the taxi driver offered to bring us back down too. Apparently he must have seen the sign at the bottom of the mountain informing potential skiers that the summit was too windy that day and the mountain would be closed...which was in German, of course. He must have chuckled to himself the whole drive up the mountain, thinking about the 40 euros we were about to give him for driving us up to a ski resort for the view of the base.

We ended up making the most of the unfortunate situation. We hitched a ride back down the mountain with a nice Austrian man on the way to another place to ski, then again with a very kind woman that had overheard our conversation with a bartender when we were inquiring about buses back to the train station, only to find out that they too were cancelled due to an Austrian holiday. she gave us a ride back to the station and wouldn't even let us buy her a coffee, she was too kind. Good job austrians.

Then went to Vienna, Slovenia, Venice, and Rome. Sorry but this is getting too annoying. One of the worse posts so far, but I can't stand typing one letter at a time anymore.

Will do the rest from home...

USA here I come.


- Matt

Location:Paris, France

zuRICH

I stayed in Zurich for two nights, and I only have a couple things to say about it. For one - its really expensive (all of Switzerland, but more so in Zurich than Interlaken). Second - Who is in charge of advertisements in Zurich? And does this stuff really work?

This is something I really want to talk about. Maybe its because Zurich supported the warnings I had heard from multiple travelers that Switzerland is kinda boring, and I mostly walked around by myself and was therefore left to my own thoughts, which can get out of control if left alone too long. I wandered mostly through the old part of the city, often just strolling up and down Bahnhofstrasse, the main strip leading out of the main train station and up through the middle of the city.

I first likened Zurich to Brussels, in that the shopping streets were lined with shops selling similar things- either high fashion clothing, watches, other jewelry, or chocolates. But as the night went on I realized something peculiar with these stores, which I soon realized was all around the city- really, really weird advertisements. I think pictures will help prove my point (yes I was this bored)...



We'll start with a view of Bahnhofstrasse at night...elegantly beautiful with wires hanging strings of blue and white lights over the street. So far so good...



Next we may start to notice some strange things, like stores selling overly fancy and unnecessary foot insert devices for the equivalent of just under a hundred dollars...



Next you witness the window advertisements...please tell me you see what I mean- this is a Louie Vitton store's window display. I think it works, don't you? Now I want to buy that purse so that I can be heavier than a small circus elephant...



Next, I have a strange desire to buy Burger jeans so that naked women will put there hands down my pants when I'm rocking them commando



H&M go back to the basics and use girls kissing to catch your attention. This one isn't even the worse, in the train station the girls were kissing on the lips. Must buy those clothes.




this one is just creepy. Nothing to joke about, these manakins scared me.



"don't worry Susan, we're wearing (insert name of fancy store)'s clothes, the sheep won't hurt us"

Yeah, even I know that last one was bad, but hopefully you see what I mean. Do these advertisements really work?!

In all fairness though, Zurich is truly a wonderful place. It is elegant, clean, and from what I can only assume - fashionable, but in all honesty, it's just not for me. But to show how nice it is, here are a couple pictures to put that perspective back in focus-






Can't deny that beauty.

But still, just not the place for me. Maybe the Swiss mountain towns will be more of my style... (next - Interlaken)

- Matt

Location:Zurich, Switzerland

Hold on a sec

Ok, so I'm a little bit behind on posts, but for good reason. I'm currently writing this in Venice, literally while I'm playing a drinking game.

I have a couple posts half written, one about Zurich and another about Interlaken and my time in Austria, but I keep getting too caught up meeting people and experiencing new cities in my last couple weeks in europe, that I haven't had time to finish them. I'm writing this real quick just to explain my assumed laziness the last week - I'm just in a mission to make my last two weeks (now one week) as great and memorable as possible. Therefore, posts are harder to come by these days. Sorry, but not sorry.

Gotta get back to a drinking game called "thumper". I'll post those other ones tomorrow when I finish them.

One week.


- Matt

Location:Venice, Italy

Two Weeks and Counting

Wow time flies by. Just the other day I was sheepishly telling one of my first
dorm mates that it was my first day in Europe, after he told me he was months in. Now, I have two weeks left in my 4 month adventure. (Coming home on the 20th, flight finally booked).

It has been creeping up on me for a couple weeks now - the feeling that a chapter in my life is coming to an end. Needless to say I've been a bit restless lately, so much in fact that I've been in four countries and 5 cities in the last week.

After Bruges I decided to go to one more city in Belgium, giving Antwerp a try. Only stayed a couple days and really don't have much to say about the city, only the people I met. As I may have discussed before, when traveling solo your experience in a city can be really affected by the people you meet, and/or the hostel you stay in. In this case, I loved my time in Antwerp, loved my hostel, and it was entirely based on the people I met there. For the most part, I spent the whole time there with a group of three girls from Tennessee and another girl from Canada. More on them later, I'm actually on the way to Bad Gastein, Austria to ski with them for a day then go to Vienna. So more on them later. Here's an idea of how cool we are though:



Album cover shot - act too cool for the picture being taken of you. And pose somewhere really weird...though we decided to climb this jungle gym before the picture, so maybe we're just immature...

I went to the train station the next morning with only an idea of where I might go. I was interested in seeing Luxembourg, that little country wedged between Belgium, France, and Germany, so I found the next train with "Luxembourg" written next to it on the board and hopped on. I was only going to stay the night so I wandered the city, trying to see as much as I could in the dark. Lucky for me, there's really not much to see in Luxembourg. I walked around for a few hours, trying to find a bar or something to meet some people and have a drink, and couldn't find anything that seemed appealing, or even full of people. Sure your country is smaller than Rhode Island, but come on. Something that was great about the city was their natural layout, spread across hills and small mountains, and beautifully connected by some impressive bridged. Below is a picture of my hostel, right next to one of the railway bridges... sadly the picture I took at night of more impressive bridges didn't turn out too well.


Getting to this place was a pain...

The following morning I made the painstaking climb back to the Luxembourg train station and hopped on a train on the way to Zurich. A couple hours in it made a stop in Strasbourg, France. I had no reason to be in Zurich that day, hadn't booked a hostel or anything so I grabbed my bag and got off. Why not? I spent the next three hours walking around the city trying to find a hostel. The first one I went to was way outside of the city and ended up being closed for renovations. Finally made it to one on the other side of the city for a reasonable price and dropped by bag off. Headed into town for a day of exploring a totally random city, and loved it. Strasbourg was filled with Christmas markets, especially around the Notre Dame cathedral in the center. Even the streets connecting them were decked out in holiday lights and decorations.



After walking through a few of them, I toured the cathedral and climbed to the top for a great view of the city at night. Here's a picture I took earlier in the day-



After I joined the festive mood even more and bought a cub of vin chaud (hot wine, aka mulled wine) that is so loved in these parts. Gotta admit, I was skeptical but it was pretty good. Also ate a giant hot dog covered in cheese - so french - even too cheesy for me. Seriously, look at these suckers-


I've noticed my camera is best at taking pictures of food... man I'm hungry right now.

The next day I went to Zurich. Then I went to Interlaken, and now I'm going to Bad Gastein, Austria. Yes, I'm ending this post abruptly. Switzerland will get its own post. I have some things I need to say about it, accompanied with plenty of pictures. You will see.

- Matt

Location:Belgium, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Zurich, Interlaken

24 Hours in Bruges

Bonjour! ...Is what I said to the first few people I saw in Bruges. Being somewhere where you can speak the local language is always nice, and my elementary French got me by in France and Brussels, so I was going to continue doing it in Bruges. Problem: They speak Flemish in Bruges.

Belgium is split almost down the middle lingually, with its capital Brussels as the unofficial dividing line between the two languages of French (South, including Brussels) and Flemish (North). Suddenly I couldn't speak a word of the local language, and even though every northern Belgian can speak French, I quickly remembered some advice from my travel book that warned that they don't like to speak "the other" language if they don't have to. Of course, as with most of northern Europe, this would not end up being a problem as most could understand English.

I arrived in Bruges knowing I was just going to spend a night and most of a day there but I was excited nonetheless. A small town, a few hundred years ago Bruges was once a thriving city in Europe, with the same population size as London, thanks to its economically significant port. However over time its importance diminished and it became somewhat forgotten to outsiders, so it sat for hundreds of years just minding its own business until the last century when tourists rediscovered its beauty and charm and started filling up its small town square all over again. Today the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage sight. I wanted to see what the hype was all about.

I arrived late afternoon to my hostel to find just one other person in my 8-bed dorm. Annie, an American doing exactly what I am doing, was more than eager to have a traveling companion for the day and we soon set out on foot to explore the city before it got too dark. Walking into the main square, our eyes opened wide to see a small christmas market, fully equipped with a small ice skating rink built in the middle surrounded by small wooden stalls selling delicious hot beverages (mulled wine is huge in these parts for some reason), and other tasty treats, as well as the usual christmas trinkets and souvenirs. Oh, and the horse-drawn carriages- everywhere! Annie and I decided after bikes, the locals favorite mode of transportation must have been these carriages, because not only were they all over the place, but every one we saw was transporting people.



Seriously this place was a fairytale city. We strolled under the Bell Tower (seen above) and suddenly found ourselves in front of a medieval reenactment with a dozen fully-dressed adults, two of which fought in full armor and real swords. Annie and I couldn't help but laugh, it was just so random. We had both traveled that day so were equally tired so we had an early night so we could get an early start the following morning.

We awoke early the next day and headed out for a full day of touring before I had to catch a train to Antwerp. We headed back to the square and climbed the Bell Tower.


Here you can see the best picture I could get from the top of the square down below. You can see the skating rink, the surrounding vendors, and if you look close enough, three or four horse-drawn carriages near the top.








Back down in the main square, we grabbed a bite to eat from the vendors. We decided on a popular one selling giant sausages. Check out the awkward timing of this picture with the couple on the right haha.





Next we decided to tour the two most Belgian things - chocolate and beer. First we headed to the Chocolate museum, which was way too much museum and not enough chocolate. We did have a fifteen minute demonstration on making chocolate at the end, with a the chance to try the chocolate at the end. Delicious.

After we headed to De Halve Maan Brouweru Taverne (The Half Moon Brewery Tavern), where my guide book had suggested as a good place for a tour of a Belgian brewery. Right again Mr. Steves. We had a blast, our guide was hilarious, and the tour was topped off by one of there beers called Brugse Jot.


In the words of Homer Simpson: "Mmmmm Beerrrrr (and drooling sounds)

After had to rush back to catch a train to go to Antwerp, my final stop in Belgium.

Fin.

- Matt

Location:Bruges, Belgium